This is where I tell you that this is the first article and tournament report I have ever written….so be warned...... eh let’s just get right into it.
Round 1 – BUG Control
I call this deck “control” because it's BUG delver sans delver but with more than one Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Game one ended with me dying to an unchecked Creeping Tarpit and Deathrite Shaman thanks to not finding one of my many ways to remove them. For game two we have about twenty-five minutes left and we begin another grind fest that involves me resolving a Jace that is in brainstorm mode and many sweepers being cast. During this second game a friend walks over and quietly watches me struggle to stabilize the board so that Jace, the Mind Sculptor can start putting in work to win the game. With less than thirty seconds left on the clock I win the second game and we both acknowledge the unfortunate truth and draw. My friend who came over to watch my match later informs me that he believes my opponent seemed to be intentionally playing slow to get a 1-0 victory. After hearing this it dawns on me I should have probably spoken up about the slow playing as I cannot afford to lose games in this fashion. This is the first of my three unintentional draws of the day, helping to create an unfortunate sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that lasted throughout the day.
0-0-1
Round 2 – RUG Delver
Worried
because I am now in the draw bracket and will likely play mirror matches all
day, I sit down across from my second opponent who thankfully was not on
playing land go. I easily 2-0 this match thanks to a quick game one where I
luckily blind flip a terminus on double delver and then run out a Jace
protected by Force of will. In game two my opponent plays the dreaded goose but
I get the Counterbalance + Top lock going and eventually sweep the goose with a
supreme verdict while locking out my opponent for the rest of the game.
1-0-1
Round 3 – Mono Red Burn
A surprising
Sulfuric Vortex game one came down for my opponent on turn three after I tapped
out to play a Counterbalance. Now the pressure is on me to close this game out
before I die to a busted three mana enchantment, I eventually find entreat
after a couple of shuffles and with the help of my opponents vortex kill him in
one swing. The following game was an interesting one to say the least. I
quickly assemble voltron (Counterbalance + Top) and proceed to lock my opponent
out of casting most of his spells. I have to force a Sulfuric Vortex when I am
unable to find a three cmc spell on the top of my library for Counterbalance, then
my opponent slips an Ensnaring Bridge into play which forces me to switch up my
game plan again. I thought about digging for the Disenchant I boarded in to
clear the way for entreat but instead I decide to go on the Jace fate seal plan
and just sidestep his bridge altogether.
2-0-1
Round 4 – BUG Delver
This match was
sort of a blur but I do remember going to three games and that they final two
games were decided by Jace doing what he does best.
3-0-1
Round 5 – High Tide
First
feature match for the day. As I sit down I notice that my opponent looks familiar
and realize I may know him from a previous event. I couldn’t pin point what he
was last on and just introduce myself as normal. I lose the die roll and see
him play turn 1 island go. Immediately I think he is on miracles and start to
mentally brace myself for a grindy game. After a few turns with me resolving a
top and him continuing to play islands and cantrips, I come to the conclusion
he is likely the high tide player I heard someone complaining about a couple
rounds ago. My hand includes Jace, force, brainstorm, and a terminus. I decide
to put the pressure on and try and resolve my Jace, he tanks for a bit and says
it's fine and ships priority back to me. I immediately brainstorm with Jace and
pass the turn. At the end of turn, my opponent casts an Intuition and grabs a
trio of High Tides. This confirms my suspicions and I fear the worst as my
opponent untaps with a grip full of cards and easily goes off through my lone
force of will. Before we start game two the judge ushers us over from the fake
feature match area to the backup cam area. I board in all of my red blasts and
meddling mages and start to shuffle up. This game went much more favorably. My
turn two meddling mage named hightide and a couple of red blasts caused enough
trouble for my opponent for him to die to the grizzly bear. With fifteen
minutes left on the clock we prepare for the final game and resolve mulligans. Both
of us keep seven and proceed to play draw go for a few turns until I tap low
for a counterbalance that meets an untimely demise to a swan song. When I pass
the turn I realize that I’m in trouble if my opponent tries to go off as the
only mana I have untapped is a lone Volcanic Island. Staring at my grip full of
counterspells that aren’t Force of Will, I sit patiently as my opponent
resolves a couple Hightide’s and proceeds to begin going off. A Few spells and a Timespiral later we refuel
our hands with mine now including a Red Elemental Blast and Force of Will +
blue cards. I try my best to counter the spells that seem important but end up
losing the war to a huge Flusterstorm. After the dust settles my opponent
resolves a Blue Sun's Zenith for some number above ten causing me to start shitting
figurative bricks. When the judge announces that time is up and we will be on
turn zero, I just accept my fate and start to give up mentally until… I hear
one word I didn’t expect from an opponent who just drew a million cards... Go...
I asked if he indeed did say go and after it was confirmed he went to cleanup
and I immediately untap and plop down the counterbalance that was gifted to me
from his timespiral. We pass turns and I pick up my second draw for the day.
3-0-2
Round 6 – BUG Delver
After such a
long match from the previous round I sit down realizing I need to play tighter
as I can't afford any losses in order to still make top 8. Having played so many bug decks I can't
remember the exact details of this game but I know it included such hits as
entreat the angels and Terminus making guest appearances in game one. Game two
Jace took over the game and raced a Lili in usual fashion.
4-0-2
Round 7 – Darrin Minard – Blue Lands
I actually
know this guy! A friend that I’ve met from battling at so many opens, Darrin is
a nice guy that has made a respectable run on the SCG open circuit. We shuffle
up and get right into our match while catching up with each other. I have no
idea what Darrin is playing when he leads with a Savannah as he is usually on
something similar to what I like to play. I assemble the Counterbalance plus Top
to lock him from playing any spells and easily take game one thanks to a Jace
that goes aggro. During game 1 he successfully gets a Dark Depths token into
play but thanks to a Terminus I was able to take care of it. I mostly figured
out what he was up to but still a little confused so I try to board
appropriately. I thought he was on some kind of lands deck playing Living Wish
but he also cast a suite of blue spells to help dig for his combo pieces. Game
two Darrin gets a quick Dark Depths token into play and protects it by forcing
my Terminus during his upkeep. Having a 20/20 in play with no way to stop it we
move on to game three. I remember thinking if I should board out the Rest in Peace’s
I brought in game two because I didn’t see a single Life From the Loam in
either game. Turns out he was indeed playing Life from the Loam and I get
punished a bit when he is recurring the Dark Depths combo on me to fight
through my removal. Thankfully because the game dragged on for several turns I
get enough mana to cast a large enough entreat to chump for a turn and kill
Darrin in two swings.
Round 8 – U/WR Miracles
I really dislike playing the mirror. My opponent was a nice guy and his deck was sweet looking with a huge chunk of it being foil, but that didn’t change how I felt about this match. Game one he gets Counterbalance out but no Sensei’s Divining Top and starts to fall behind in the land race. Luckily for me his blind flips aren’t hitting when I’m casting spells and after some countermagic I’m the first to get a Jace down. I use my Jace to try and pull ahead but the next turn he draws the much needed second white source and casts a timely council’s judgment to dispatch my JTMS. Somehow I manage to sneak in a Top that helps find me an Entreat to climb back in and win the game. The second game was kind of brutal for me. Multiple Flusterstorm’s won the counter wars, leaving me staring down the Counterbalance lock + Jace. Seeing the writing on the wall we move onto game three. My opponent and I exchange cardboard blows until he is left with counterbalance + top to just my top and multiple lands. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting to resolve an entreat the angels that I had been floating for multiple turns, I get to bait any remaining counter magic by running out a Jace that is super unprotected. My patience won this game by providing me the turns needed to resolve a lethal entreat while his resources were depleted.
Round 8 – U/WR Miracles
I really dislike playing the mirror. My opponent was a nice guy and his deck was sweet looking with a huge chunk of it being foil, but that didn’t change how I felt about this match. Game one he gets Counterbalance out but no Sensei’s Divining Top and starts to fall behind in the land race. Luckily for me his blind flips aren’t hitting when I’m casting spells and after some countermagic I’m the first to get a Jace down. I use my Jace to try and pull ahead but the next turn he draws the much needed second white source and casts a timely council’s judgment to dispatch my JTMS. Somehow I manage to sneak in a Top that helps find me an Entreat to climb back in and win the game. The second game was kind of brutal for me. Multiple Flusterstorm’s won the counter wars, leaving me staring down the Counterbalance lock + Jace. Seeing the writing on the wall we move onto game three. My opponent and I exchange cardboard blows until he is left with counterbalance + top to just my top and multiple lands. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting to resolve an entreat the angels that I had been floating for multiple turns, I get to bait any remaining counter magic by running out a Jace that is super unprotected. My patience won this game by providing me the turns needed to resolve a lethal entreat while his resources were depleted.
5-0-2
Round 9 – Austin Williams - BUG Delver
At 6-0-2 I
sit down across from a friend from Houston who unfortunately got paired down
against me and was forced to play out his last round. We play out three super
grindy games that force me to go to time again in turn dashing my hopes for
making top 8. I jokingly ask if he would like to concede to me but we both know
that isn’t going to happen with him sitting at 7-1-1 and I wish him good luck
in the top 8. Now here is where I would end this report and talk about how I
got 10th place or some subpar finish.
6-0-3
*BUT*
As I start to walk out of the convention room while they
were announcing the top 8 I hear Austin’s name for 7th place and
applaud as I’m glad one of us made it. At this point I’m assuming the judge is
muttering something about who made 9th
place on breakers and as I hear my name I continue my trek outside until
someone stops me to say congratulations. My response was of surprise and
disbelief that I had somehow managed to squeak into top 8 at 6-0-3. Little to
my knowledge, instead of safely drawing in to top 8 my quarter’s opponent tells
me he played for seating and CRUSHED his round 9 opponent. I guess this is just
life doing me a solid for when I went 9-1-1 at the North Carolina open and made
10th on Breakers.
Top 8
Quarterfinals – Paul Hargrove - Dredge
Thanks to
this guy I made it in to this top 8! He informs me he doesn’t play legacy too
much and picked up dredge because it’s pretty powerful. Paul seemed to be pretty
happy he made top 8 but for someone who just started playing Legacy, not
drawing into top 8 seems insane to me. But I have him to thank for this win and
we get started in our match.
This match was covered by Tom Ross on SCG and I will let him
tell the story as his coverage is better than my memory.
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/quarterfinals_paul_hargrove_vs.html
7-0-3
Another BUG delver match ugh… Going into this tournament I really disliked playing against this deck and “luckily” for me this is the 4th time so far playing against BUG delver and the 5th BUG deck overall today. Both games one and three aren’t very interesting and go about how all of the BUG vs. miracles matches go with me taking them both. But for game two I made some interesting plays that I would like to recap. We board for game two and I bring in the usual supreme verdicts that I love so much in matches that involve daze. During a complicated turn deep into game two I’m facing down three creatures (Vendilion Clique, un-flipped Delver of Secrets and a Tarmogoyf) during my opponents combat step with just my top and two untapped lands up. My untapped mana looks like one fetch land and one Plains. From a previous top activation I know I have a Terminus floating and decide to go all in on it during combat. I tap top to draw and flip Terminus to which my opponent starts to tank super hard on my play causing me to think he has some kind of soft countermagic. With a Wasteland untapped Noah is considering countering my terminus somehow with his single Daze (that at the time I didn’t know about) in his hand. I ask him if the miracle trigger resolves and he says no and then tries to Wasteland my fetch land in response so I can shuffle away my top. I take the bait and shuffle away my top and go and get a land. Then when priority is passed back to Noah he lets my terminus resolve. Now I’m thinking “Wait a second why didn’t Noah just let the miracle trigger resolve forcing me to pay the cost and then in response Wasteland my fetch land to force me to sacrifice or just let it die but in either scenario he can then Daze me as I am now tapped out?” My plan here was to bait out a Daze so I can resolve the Jace I wanted to play after I cast a Supreme Verdict if this Terminus doesn’t resolve. By him not playing the “I Wasteland your fetch, Daze you in response” game I assume he doesn’t have a Daze to save three of his guys and decide to slam Jace. Well sadly Noah either didn’t know he could daze my terminus there or I got next leveled because he promptly dazed my Jace and from there I start to tumble down hill and eventually lose this game. Game one and three was won but like I said earlier not very exciting.
8-0-3
Finals – Austin Williams – BUG Delver
I meet
Austin again in the feature match area but this time there is no timer to stop
me from winning this match. With both Austin and I exhausted from such a long
weekend we go over each other’s deck lists and both notice some interesting
card choices. All three of my opponents in the top 8 had to ask a judge for the
oracle wording on Tsabo’s Web, and due to its lack of popularity I can’t hold
it against them. In Austin’s list I noticed he was playing stifles in place of
more Hymn to Tourach’s and Liliana of the Veil’s. Oddly I didn’t see this
earlier in round nine when I played him and was not thinking to play around him
stifling my miracle triggers previously. With my 6th overall BUG
match of the day I’m pretty much just thinking about how much work is going to
suck tomorrow morning at 8am and want to end this as quickly as possible to get
started on our four hour trek home. It is around 11:30pm and I realize I am
probably not sleeping until tomorrow afternoon. Austin doesn’t make it easy for
me but I somehow managed to 2-0 him this time thanks to my man Jace, the Mind Sculptor
and his crew of angels.
9-0-3 – Woo Undefeated!
The Deck
Creatures (3)
·
2 Snapcaster Mage
·
1 Vendilion Clique
Planeswalkers (3)
·
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Lands (23)
·
4 Island
·
1 Mountain
·
2 Plains
·
2 Arid Mesa
·
4 Flooded Strand
·
1 Mystic Gate
·
4 Scalding Tarn
·
3 Tundra
·
1 Volcanic Island
·
1 Karakas
Spells (31)
·
4 Sensei's Divining Top
·
3 Counterbalance
·
4 Brainstorm
·
2 Counterspell
·
4 Force of Will
·
2 Spell Pierce
·
4 Swords to Plowshares
·
1 Council's Judgment
·
2 Entreat the Angels
·
1 Ponder
·
4 Terminus
Sideboard
·
1 Pithing Needle
·
1 Tsabo's Web
·
2 Meddling Mage
·
2 Rest in Peace
·
2 Disenchant
·
2 Red Elemental Blast
·
1 Vendilion Clique
·
2 Supreme Verdict
First let me start by saying that I have helped put this list
together by getting idea’s from Joe Lossett, Joe Bass and Philipp
Schonegger’s miracle builds. Without their creativity I wouldn’t have arrived
at what I have today. I like to pour over lists and take what I like from each one
to make something more suited to my play style. I’ve always liked not losing to
wasteland so when I came across Joe Lossett’s deck I felt he nailed the
manabase with playing the mainboard Mountain. As I mentioned in the coverage
interview I would possibly cut some number of Spell Pierces for more ponders.
Other than that I was pretty happy with the list mainboard. You can tell how
much I hate losing to Wasteland because I’m playing Disenchant over Wear//Tear
just for the ease on mana requirements. When I would need my red mana early but
didn’t want red mana just yet I would dread having to go get my Volcanic Island
or worse the singleton Mountain. As for Tsabo’s Web…. Well I think it’s good
vs. Death and Taxes and Cloud Post decks, but I’ve yet to get it in play vs.
them so I’m not really sure how good it is.
Props -
To Paul Hargrove for crushing his last Swiss round to let me
into top 8 unintentionally.
My LGS Will Power Gaming along with my friends for loaning me
cards.
And Travis
Gewinnen Sheen for hooking me up with some peanut butter sandwiches when I was
fading due to hunger before the finals.
Slops –
Drawing matches where I could possibly have won due to me not
time checking my opponents by saying something or notifying a judge.
The misplays I make when I’m inpatient.
If you have made it this far, thanks for reading!
is Tsabo's Web really necessary and does it even matter? I tried Staticaster and it kept getting Blasted. How's Meddling Mage working for you?
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